Parallel Universe
by MissesLovegoodEverdeenBaggins
Summary: What happens when Harry Potter and his sisters Jessica and Aria find 7 books...about Harry? Read this to find out!
1. Finding and Reading The Books

**Authors Note: Harry Potter and his two sisters Jessica and Aria find 7 books all about Harry-But not the Harry they know. They read the books (I only put their reactions when their finished cause it seemed silly to put the books in it twice) and then are transported to a pararell universe, which is 15 year old Harry Potter, along with his older self, his older self from this pararell universe, his parents, Sirius and Remus as teenagers, and adults, and the whole D.A. Enjoy! *There are a lot of spelling mistakes, I will try and fix them A.S.A.P* ~J.O.L.W **

**Disclaimer: All the writing in bold belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling. I do not own any of these characters, except for the two original characters, Aria and Jessica Potter.  
**

_Chapter 1: Finding and Reading The Books._

Harry Potter and his little sisters Jessica and Aria were bored. "Hey, I got an idea." Aria said. She walked over to the Muggle laptop they owned and opened the internet. She typed "Harry Potter" into the search engine. The three Potters watched in awe as the screen loaded, and hundreds of results came up. "Woah, Harry your famous." Jessica whispered. Aria clicked on "Harry Potter Wikipedia." "A popular book and movie series..." she read. "W-why would there be a book series about me?" Harry asked. The two girls shrugged. Then a bright blue light apperead on the table. When the light faded, sat seven books with a note on top. Jessica stood up, and took the note of the books. She read the note quickly, and her mouth dropped open. "What?" Aria and Harry asked. "Listen to this-

_Dear Harry, Jessica, and Aria,_

_These 7 books are about a pararell universe in which Jessica and Aria don't exist, your parents are dead, and Harry is sent to live with your Muggle aunt and uncle. There is an evil man, named Voldemort, who killed your parents, and Harry is known as the Boy-Who-Lived, because Voldemort tried to kill Harry, but somehow, he survived. Terrible things happen when he goes to Hogwarts, and we want these things to be prevented. Please read all 7 books, with Sirius, Remus, and your parents. Attached to this letter is a Sickle, which is a Portkey, which when you are done reading will take you to Harry Potters 5th year from the books. Harrys friend Hermione Granger has a Time Turner. Show her this letter, and she will take you back in time to your parents 7th year at Hogwarts. A letter like this has been sent to a 32 year old Harry Potter as well, and he will be there as well as your older selves. Please do this, to save hundreds of people from unnecisary fate._

Harry and Aria stood there, dumbstruck. "W-who's it from?" Harry asked. "There's no signature." Jessica said. "Do you think we should do it?" Aria asked. Harry and Jessica nodded. "You heard what it said, it will save people from unnecassary fates." Harry said. Aria nodded too. "Alright, lets go get mum dad and the others." Jessica said. The three walked out of the room and into the kitchen. "Err..Mum, dad, Sirius, Remus?" Harry said as they walked in. "Yeah?" said Lily, who was making dinner. "Well, er...I don't really know how to explain it..but...here." he said handing her the note. She read it aloud to the three Marauders, and all of their jaws dropped. Jessica handed Lily the first book. **"Harry Potter and the Philosphers Stone" **she read. "Well, should we start reading?" "No, after dinner!" Sirius said, his stomach growling. "You have a bottomless pit for a stomach Sirius." Remus and James said together, than looked at each other in surprise.

After they finished eating, they picked up the book. "I'll read first!" Aria said. "No surprise there." Harry said. Aria rolled her eyes and flipped to the first page. "Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived."

_The Next Day, they were about to start book 2_

Harry, Jessica, and Aria stumbled into the kitchen the next morning. Lily, James, Sirius, and Remus, were all ready in there. "Ready to start book two?" Lily aked. Everyone nodded. "its called **"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" **Lily, Remus, Jessica, and Aria's eyes all widened, seeing as they were the only one who had read "Hogwarts: A History." Harry, Sirius, and James looked confused. "What's the Chamber of Secrets?" "Well, some say it's only a legend, but if this book is about it...Then, well, the book will probably explain." Remus said. "Well, if you three bothered to pick up "Hogwarts: A History" you would know." Jessica sighed. The two Marauders looked offended at the thought of reading, and Harry rolled his eyes. "I want to read first." Jessica said. Lily handed the book to her, and she opened to the first page. "Chapter 1: The Worst Birthday."

_After about 2 hours, they were on book 3_

"Okay, onto book 3!" Remus said. **"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"** Everyone shuddered at "Azkaban." "Who wants to read?" Remus asked. "I will." Lily said. "Chapter 1: Owl Post." she read after turning to the page.

_2 or 3 hours later, they were on 4 after a short lunch break._

"The fourth books called **'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'**" Sirius said. "I guess I'll read, unless anyone else wants too." Everyone gasped. "Sirius wants to read! ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!" Jessica screamed, then pretended to faint. "Haha very funny." Sirius said as Jessica popped up from the floor, grinning, as everybody laughed. "Okay, Chapter 1: The Riddle House."

_3 hours later they finished the book and ate dinner. _

"Book five is **'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoniex'" **Harry read. The adults in the room grinned. "I'll read." he said. "Chapter 1: Dudley Demented"

_Few hours later..._

All the girls and Harry were crying, and the men all looked sad and shocked. "S-Sirius, you c-can't die! I d-don't care if this hasn't happened, y-you can't die!" Jessica cried. "Jessica, relax, I'm right here, okay?" he said, putting an arm around her. He put his other arm around Aria, and pulled them and Harry into a group hug. She nodded and wiped her eyes. "Well, how about you all go to bed, we'll finish in the morning." Lily said as she too wiped her eyes. The children nodded and went up to their rooms.

_The next morning..._

The three Potter kids walked into the kitchen, sat down, ate a quick breakfast, and got ready to read with the adults. "Okay, book six **'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'" **James said. "I'll read." "Chapter 1: The Other Minister"

_A while later..._

Lily, her eyes full of tears screamed "I WAS FRIENDS WITH THAT MURDERER! I WAS HIS FRIEND, I STUCK UP FOR HIM, BUT THEN HE GOES AND CALLS ME A BLOODY MUDBLOOD AND HE EXPECTS ME TO FORGIVE HIM, THEN HE GOES, TORTURES MY SON, AND KILLS DUMBLEDORE!" Everybody was fuming. "Lets hope next book, he gets arrested, or something." Remus said. "OR EVEN BETTER KILLED!" Aria screamed. She wiped her eyes furiously. "The last book is **'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.' **Remus, you can read."

Remus took the book, and opened it. "Chapter 1: The Dark Lord Ascending." "Well, that's such a cheery title." James muttered.

_Later..._

Everybody in the room had tears in their eyes. But they were also smiling. Voldemort had gone at last. Harry was being suffocated by the others. "This isn't going to happen. We know how to destroy Voldemort in the future...past...present...whatever, you get what I mean." Sirius said. "Oh, and Harry gets a girl, Harry gets a girl!" Jessica and Aria sang. James and Sirius joined in, as Harry blushed, and Lily and Remus rolled their eyes. "Hey, I just noticed Jess and Aria aren't in these!" Sirius said. Everyone stared at him. "THAT IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION, THANK YOU SIRIUS!" Jessica yelled sarcastically. "Sirius, first of all, the note told us that, and all seven books, you JUST noticed that?" Aria asked him. He shrugged. "Alright, now wheres that Sickle?" James asked. Harry walked over to the note and took it off the back. "Here." he said handing it to his father. "Ok, it should activate any sec-" he was cut off as the Portkey activated, and he, Sirius, Lily, and Remus were transported. Jessica swore loudly. "Great, we missed it!" Aria said. "They'll come back for us." Harry said. "NO THEY WON'T WERE GOING TO DIEEEEE!" Aria said. Harry rolled his eyes. "Drama queen." he muttured.


	2. Meeting, Explaining, and Embarrassment

**Chapter 2: Meeting, Explaining, and Embarrassment.**

_Meanwhile..._

The DA was having a meeting in the Room of Requirement. Suddenly a blue light appeared and James, Lily, Remus and Sirius all landed in the room. Sirius swore loudly. "Great, we left them behind!" James said. "Don't worry, we'll just go back for them." Lily said. "NO BY THE TIME WE GET THERE THEY'LL BE DEADDD!" Sirius said. Lily rolled her eyes. Harry, and the rest of the DA was staring at them. Harry cautiously stepped forward. "M-Mum? D-Dad? Sirius, Remus?" he asked. They all nodded. "S-Sirius B-Black?" Neville stuttered. Sirius swore again. "I forgot I'm a mass murderer, to these people." "You are! You killed thirteen people with one curse!" Dean yelled bravely. "Did not!" Sirius said childishly. "And we have proof!" he added holding up the books, along with the letter. Harry read the letter aloud to everyone, his eyes widening a little more with each sentence. "What does it mean 'Parallel universe where Aria and Jessica don't exist'?" Harry asked. "Well, where we come from, Voldemort never rose to power, and you have two twin sisters Jessica and Aria, and me and Lils are still alive." James explained, and Harrys mouth dropped open. "I h-have s-sisters?" he asked. Lily nodded. "You guys got this letter along with the books, and we read them, and, well, we need to read them, and...you guys should read them, along with Professor Dumbledore, I think." Lily said. "We got this Portkey" she said, holding up the Sickle. Harry winced, he hated Portkeys. "and you, Jess and Aria missed it. I guess I'll go back and get them." "I'll go too." Remus said. James and Sirius smirked, as Lily and Remus disappeared again. "While, their gone, how about we embarass the junior Marauders?" James said. Fred and George gasped. "M-Marauders?" they asked. "You mean, Harry is-" "Prongs junior?" George finished for his twin. Harry, James and Sirius nodded. Fred and George gaped at him. "Anyway..." James closed his eyes and wished up a Penseive. "Now, which memory shall we show them Pads?" Sirius thought for a minute, than beckoned James closer and whispered in his ear. James grinned. He pulled a slivery-looking thing from his temple and dropped it in the basin. He made some kids who weren't as afraid to approach the strange men come closer (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny, and surprisingly Neville) and they dived into the basin. There were three kids sitting in front of a Muggle TV, apparently watching some movie. One boy, with untidy black hair and glases, who was obviously Harry, a tall girl with blond hair, and another girl with black hair, sat in front, looking very excited. "I love this song, I call Toby!" the girl with blond hair yelled, and she grabbed a hat, scrunched up her face, and shortened her hair to her shoulders, and stuffed it in the hat. She stood up on her chair. Then on the screen, a boy walked on the screen with a drum, and the girl clapped out the beat he played. Then she began to sing along with him.

**Ladies and gentlemen,**

**May I have your attention, perlease?**

**Do you wake every morning in shame and despair,**

**Discover your pillow is covered with hair?**

**What ought not to be there?**

**Well, ladies and gentlemen,**

**From now on you can waken at ease**

**You may never again have a worry or care,**

**I will show you a miracle, marvelous rare,**

**Gentlemen you are about to see something what rose from the dead,**

**On the top of my head!**

She took off the hat, and let her now shoulder-lenght hair fall.

**'Twas Pirelli's Miracle Elixir,**

**That's what did the trick sir,**

**True, sir, true,**

**Was it quick, sir?**

**Did it in a tick, sir?**

**Just like an elixir ought to do.**

**How about a bottle mister?**

**Only costs a penny, guaranteed.**

**Does Pirelli's stimulate the growth, sir?**

**You can have my oath sir,**

**'Tis unique.**

**Rub a minute,**

**Stimulatin' i'n' it?**

**Soon you'll have to thin it once a week.**

Harry and the other girl stood up, and sang their part then.

**Pardon me ma'am what's that awful stench?**

**Are we standing near an open trench?**

**Must be standing near an open trench.**

The girl other girl began again.

**Try Pirelli's Miracle Elixir,**

**Anything what's slick, sir,**

**Soon sprouts curls,**

**Try Pirelli's,**

**When they see how thick, sir,**

**You can have your pick, sir, of the girls!**

**Want to buy a bottle missus?**

Harry and the dark haired girl sang now.

**What is this?**

**What is this?**

**Smells like piss.**

**Smells like - phew!**

**Looks like piss.**

**Wouldn't touch it if I was you, dear!**

**This is piss. Piss with ink.**

The girl with blond hair, trying not to laugh sang again.

**Let Pirelli's activate your roots, sir.**

Harrys turn.

**Keep it off your boots, sir, eats right through.**

Blondie again.

**Yes, get Pirelli's!**

**Use a bottle of it!**

**Ladies seem to love it **

Black-hairs turn.

**Flies do too.**

The three laughed and sat back down.

The memory, ended and Harry was blushing, and the others were laughing. "We didn't know you could sing Harry!" Ron said loudly. The rest of the room heard this, so they bounded forward to hear the Boy-Who-Lived sing. Each time people went in, they came out laughing, and Harry's face kept getting darker each time. He blushed extremely dark when Cho came out giggling. Then, Harry, and the two girls from the memory came with Remus and Lily. Everyone started clapping (except Harry). They had confused looks on their faces. "Er...Guys, I know me and my sister are attractive, but theres no need to clap for us." the one with black hair said. "But really why are you clapping?" she asked. Everyone pointed at James, Sirius, and the Pensieve. The three turned to their father and godfather with looks of horror on their face. "W-what did you show them?" Jessica asked. "Just you three singing about hair elixer, piss, and ink." Sirius said smirking. Jessica and Arias hair turned light blue, and Harrys face turned pink."You are such a prat Sirius!" Aria said. She leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. "If I hadn't just heard about you death, I would kill you." Then, a blue light appeared, and two 32 year old Harry Potters along with 31 year old Jessica and Aria. All the Harrys in the room stared at eachother. As did the two pairs of girls. Then, another blue light, and 17 year old James, Lily, Sirius, and Remus appeared. Everyone who just appeared looked shocked. The adult Marauders explained. Then, the door to the room opened, and Albus Dumbledore walked in, holding a piece of parchment in his hand, eyes twinkling. "So, where are these books?" he asked. Lily pointed to the stack of books. The twinkle in Dumbledores eyes faultered as he saw "Deathly Hallows" but returned almost instantly. "Shall, we start reading?" "I'll read first!" Jessica said before her twin could. Aria glared at her, but let her read. **"Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived." **


	3. The Boy Who Lived

**Chapter 3: The Boy Who Lived.**

**"Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived." **"That's you Harry!" Ron said. "YOU DON'T SAY?" Fred, George, Jessica, and Aria all yelled at the same time, then looked at eachother in surprise. Jessica began to read again.

**Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. **

"They sound like fasincating people!" Ginny said sarcastically.

**Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. **

"Hasn't changed much." younger Lily muttered.

**The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere. **

Two of the four Harrys snorted. "Dudley, small, and fine do NOT belong even in the same paragraph together." 15 year old Harry said.

**The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. **

"What's wrong with the Potters?" nearly everyone shouted. "I mean except for the fact theirs all short and scrawny." Sirius added. All the Potters in the room yelled "Hey!" "I am not short." 15 year old Harry huffed. "You keep telling yourself that mate." said Ron. Harry glared at him. "Can I read now?" Jessica asked impatiently. They nodded.

**Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister,**

Both Lilys in the room looked down sadly, and both James's put their arms around her.

**because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish**

"He is not good for nothing!" half the room shouted. "And unDursleyish isn't a word!" Hermione said.

**as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

"My son is better than that fat lump could even dream to be!" Lily shrieked.

**When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair. **

"Brat." was heard being muttured throughout the room. The Harrys who lived in the book-universe were worried. He had slept in a cupboard...He had almost been put in Slytherin...He had been under the Cruciatus Curse...Not to mention how much danger he got into. This was going to be very, very, bad.

**None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window. **

**At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.**

"Brat." was heard again.

**"Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. **

"He thought that was funny?" "_Little _tyke?" was heard from several people.

**He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive. **

**It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. **

"Cats can't read maps." Ron said. "Unless it's an Animagus." Hermione said thoughtfully.

**For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. **

"He's lost it." said Remus shaking his head. "Moony, he never had it." Sirius said, and people laughed.

**Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. **

**Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdoes standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together.**

**Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt —these people were obviously collecting for something… yes, that would be it. **

"This man...is a moron." Cho said.

**The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.**

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead.**

**Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. **

"Is it just me, or does this man like shouting?" Fred asked. Jessica was clearly getting annoyed with the interuptions, and she glared at him. Fred, who saw the resemblence to his mother and sisters glare, recoiled slightly. She smirked and began reading again.

**He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk **

"What?" teenage Harry asked. _*A/N: If I saw "teenage Harry, its 15 year old Harry, if i just say Harry, its 10 year old Harry from the other universe, 32 year old Harry is the harry from 19 years later, and then older Harry is the older Harry from the other universe*_

**across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery. **

"Oh." said Harry. "I thought he was actually excersising. Nope, excersisng to get food to make him fatter." Cue laughter.

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. **

**This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

**"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard —"**

**" — yes, their son, Harry —" **

Dumbledore realized what day this was and put his head down.

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead. **

**Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone,**

"What?" all the pure-bloods asked. "Muggle thing." Hermione said.

**and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking… no, he was being stupid.**

"Finally, he realized!" teenage Harry said. Jessica glared at him. Sirius grimanced. "You do NOT want to be on the recieving end of her accidental magic." Harry, James, Lily, and Remus all nodded. Aria high-fived her sister. Jessica smirked and started reading again.

**Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry. **

"He didn't even know your name!" teen Lily shrieked.

**He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. **

"Harold Potter." Fred snorted. "Harvey Potter." George snorted. Harry made a disgusted face. "Thank Merlin my parents have good taste in names." he said. "Well, I was thinking Sirius Junior, but Harry's good." said Sirius. Before anyone could say anything Jessica read again.

**There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her — if he'd had a sister like that… **

"THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH LILY/MRS. POTTER/ MY MUM!" was shouted by nearly everyone. Lily was very interested in her hands folded in her lap.

**but all the same, those people in cloaks…**

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.**

**"Sorry," he grunted,**

"He knows that word?" teenage Harry asked.

**as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! **

**Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!"**

**And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.**

"His arms fit?" Fred asked. Jessica glared at him.

**Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination. **

"That's just sad." teen Sirius said.

**As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw—and it didn't improve his mood — was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning.**

"Bet it's Minnie." teen James said. Sirius shook his head. "She woudn't just sit around in front a Muggles house on her arse all day." "Okay, bet you a Galleon it's her." Adult James silenced adult Sirius so he wouldn't stop his teen self from betting. "Deal."

**It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.**

**"Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly.**

"If it's Minnie, that won't work." James said.

**The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. **

"That is so Minnie." teen James said.

**Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.**

**Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!").**

**"**Well, isn't that every mothers dream!" Ginny said sarcastically. Adult Harry had to hide his smirk. The look on Ginnys face when baby James said "buddy ell" had been priceless.

**Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:**

**"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"**

**"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early — it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."**

**Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters…**

"THE IDIOT IS PUTTING THINGS TOGETHER!" Sirius yelled. Jessica lost it. She grabbed her mothers wand, pointed it at Sirius, and yelled "_Silencio! Oppougno!" _Sirius was attacked by a swarm of canaries, and he was screaming, but he was silenced. Jessica handed her mother back her wand, sat down, picked up the book, and began to read with a satisfied smirk.

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er — Petunia, dear — you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"**

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister. **

Both Lilys looked dwon sadly. Everyone else looked angry. How can you pretend your sister doesn't exist?

**"No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

**"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls… shooting stars… and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today…"**

**"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.**

**"Well, I just thought… maybe… it was something to do with… you know… her crowd." **

"_Her crowd?" _was shrieked around the room.

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son — he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"**

**"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.**

**"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"**

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

"I think it's a lovely name." Lily said. "Me too." Hermione and Ginny said. All the Harrys smiled at their mother, best friend and wife.

**"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."**

**He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.**

**Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did… if it got out that they were related to a pair of — well, he didn't think he could bear it.**

**The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind… He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn't affect them…**

**How very wrong he was. **

Teen Harry wanted to comment, but as Sirius was still being attacked by birds he didn't.

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

**Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore. **

Everyone chuckled at his description.

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known." **

Teen Sirius was extremely worried now. Teen James was grinning.

**He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. **

"Woah cool!" was the general yelled throughout the room.

**He clicked it again — the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

**"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." **

Teen James cheered and held out his hands. Teen Sirius grumbled and shoved a Galleaon into his hand.

**He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled. "How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

"Who else would it be?" James scoffed.

**"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."**

**"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall. **

**"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."**

**Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

**"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no — even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." **

**She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls… shooting stars… Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent — I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense." **

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."**

**She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. **

**"We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"**

Everyone shook their head with an amused smile on their face, as Dumbledore wished up a bowl of lemon drops.

**"A what?"**

**"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."**

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone —"**

**"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense — for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort."**

Nearly everyone winced.

**Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name." "I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."**

**"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have." **

"Well, because your too noble to use them." Hermione said.

**"Only because you're too — well —noble to use them." **

Hermione blinked.

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what they're saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"**

**It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.**

**"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. **

**The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are — are — that they're — dead." **

Sad looks appeared on everyones faces. Teen Lily and James hugged eachother.

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.**

**"Lily and James… I can't believe it… I didn't want to believe it… Oh, Albus…"**

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know… I know…" he said heavily.**

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. **

**But he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke — and that's why he's gone."**

**Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

**"It's — it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done… all the people he's killed… he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding… of all the things to stop him… but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"**

"That's what we'd like to know." teen Harry said.

**"We can only guess." said Dumbledore. "We may never know." **

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"**

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"**

**"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now." **

"Sadly." "Shut UP!" "Sorry!"

**"You don't mean – you can't mean the people who live here?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore — you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son — I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"**

**"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

"A letter? You think you can explain this in a letter!" teen Lily exclaimed.

**"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter?**

Lily blinked.

**These people will never understand him! He'll be famous — a legend — I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future — there will be books written about Harry — every child in our world will know his name!" **

"Again, sadly." Jessica's hand twitched toward her mothers pocket. Harry moved closer to Remus.

**"Exactly." said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"**

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes — yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it. **

"Please tell me I wasn't." Harry said looking at Dumbledore. He laughed and shook his head.

**"Hagrid's bringing him."**

**"You think it —wise — to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"**

"I would trust Hagrid with my life." all of the Harrys said, then looking around at eachother surprised.

**"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore. **

All the Harrys looked at Dumbledore now as well.

**"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to — what was that?"**

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky — and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them. **

"Awesome!" nearly all the males in the room yelled. Jessica glared around at them.

**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild — long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**

**"No problems, were there?"**

**"No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."**

"Awwww" all of the girls in the room cooed and all four Harrys blushed.

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.**

"Awww!" all the girls went again. "Please tell me there's not a lot of me as a baby in this book." teen Harry muttured.

**"Is that where —?" whispered Professor McGonagall.**

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."**

**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. **

"Really?" George asked. Dumbledore nodded. "Wicked." the twins said together.

**Well — give him here, Hagrid — we'd better get this over with."**

**Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house.**

**"Could I — could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog. **

**"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "You'll wake the Muggles!"**

**"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it —Lily an' James dead — an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles —"**

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two.**

"YOU LEFT HIM ON A DOORSTEP?" nearly everyone exploded. "I wouldn't give the Dursleys a chance to refuse him." he explained. "THEY COULD HAVE TAKEN HIM TO AN ORPHANAGE, OR JUST KICKED HIM INTO THE STREET!" teen Lily shrieked. Jessica, deciding to spare Dumbledore her mothers wrath after all he had done for Harry, read again.

**For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

**"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall — Professor Dumbledore, sir."**

**Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.**

**"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.**

**"Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.**

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up.**

"Awww!" All Harrys blushed again and facepalmed.

**One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley… He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter — the boy who lived!"**

"Thats the end of the chapter." Jessica said. "Who wants to re-" but was cut off as Aria grabbed it. "Ok, I guess my kind and polite sister will read." Aria glared at her sister, but started to read.

**"Chapter 2: The Vanishing Glass."**


	4. The Vanishing Glass

**Chapter 4: The Vanishing Glass**

**"Chapter 2: The Vanishing Glass." **"Accidental magic?" Dumbledore asked. Harry nodded with a grin. Then he stopped. "I set the snake free because I'm Parselmouth." he thought.

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bonnets **

Everybody laughed

— **but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.**

**Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.**

**"Up! Get up! Now!"**

Both Lilys winced. That was NOT the first thing you wanted to hear in the morning.

**Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.**

**"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.**

"It wasn't a dream Harry." Hermione said. "I know that now."

**His aunt was back outside the door.**

**"Are you up yet?" she demanded.**

**"Nearly," said Harry.**

**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."**

**Harry groaned.**

**"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.**

**"Nothing, nothing…"**

**Dudley's birthday — how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider**

Ron shivered.

**Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them**

"What does that have to do with anything?" Neville asked. Harry internally cringed. He got ready for the explosion.

**and that was where he slept.**

"WHAT?" everyone shouted. Even though Jessica and Aria had already read the book, they were fuming. "A CUPBOARD?" Hermione screamed. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US!" she screamed. "It never really came up." he said. Ron looked absolutley murderous. "Fred? George?" he said. His twin brothers who had been angrily planning on things to do to the Dursleys, looked up at him. "Count me in on whatever your planning." The twins nodded. "Can we just read please?" Harry asked Aria desperatly. She nodded.

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.**

"Spoiled little git." Ron muttered.

**Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise — unless of course it involved punching somebody.**

"He better not mean you." Ginny said still seething about the cupboard.

**Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry,**

Everybody growled.

**but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.**

"At least theres that." Dean said.

**Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.**

"No that's just the Potter genes."

**He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobby knees, black hair,**

"James." adult and teen Lily, Sirius, and Remus said.

**and bright green eyes.**

"Lily." adult and teen James, Sirius, Remus.

**He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. **

Cue the growls.

**The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.**

Half the people in the room turned to him shocked. "You actually liked your scar?" Hermione asked. Harry shrugged. ''Before I knew what it was it was pretty cool."

**He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.**

**"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said.**

"THEY DIDN'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW YOUR PARENTS DIED?" Hermione and Ginny shrieked. Even dreamy Luna Lovegood had lost her dreamy look and was angry.

**Don't ask questions — that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

"How will you learn if you don't ask questions?" Hermione asked. "I think the point was they didn't _want _me to learn." teen Harry said.

**Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

"Won't work." both sets of Marauders, all four Harrys, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins chorused.

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way — all over the place.**

James grinned and ruffled Harrys hair. "Dad! As if it wan't bad enough!" he moaned trying to fix it.

**Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small,**

**Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel — Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

Everybody laughed. The twins high-fived teen Harry.

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

"That spoiled little pig." "Brat." "Git."was muttered from around the room. Aria and Jessica were muttering things that are not appropiate to write down.

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."**

"Why are they indulging him? It'll just make the situation worse," teen Remus pointed out.

**"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

"Smart." Ron said.

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"**

"Don't make it worse!" Hermione said.

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty… thirty…"**

Everyone stared at the book in schock. "He can't even add 37+2?" Neville asked.

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled.**

**"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.**

"Don't encourage him!" Cho yelled.

**At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR.**

"What?" all the purebloods asked. "Muggle stuff." Hermione said.

**He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him."**

**She jerked her head in Harry's direction.**

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

"Feel bad for you mate." Fred said. Aria was irritated with the interruptions seeing as they were barely halfway through the chapter.

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this.**

"How could he have planned this?" Neville and Luan asked, them looked at eachother in surprise. Neville blushed and looked away from her.

**Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.**

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

**"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."**

"Feelings mutal." teen Harry muttured. Aria glared at him and he moved closer to Ron who snickerd.

**The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there — or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

Growls were heard.

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?"**

**"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).**

"Nice try, not gonna work." teen Sirius said shaking his head.

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**

"He won't blow up the house!" Ginny said.

**"I won't blow up the house," said Harry,**

"Aww Harrykins and Gin-Gin think alike!" George said. Ginny and Harry blushed. "Don't call me Harrykins/Gin-Gin!" they said at the same time. George smirked. Everyone who read the book, and older Harry also smirked.

**but they weren't listening.**

**"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "… and leave him in the car…"**

"He's not a dog!" Hermione said. Sirius looked offeneded, but didn't say anything.

**"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone…" **

"Oh yes, the cars more important than my best mate!" Ron said angrily.

**Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying — it had been years since he'd really cried — but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

"Brat," everyone hissed.

**"Dinky Duddydums,**

Everyone roared with laughter at the ridiculous nickname.

**don't cry, mummy won't let him ruin your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him. **

"They fit?" teen Sirius said. Harry laughed. "It was just his neck, but it seemed like a pretty hard job." Everyone snorted.

**"I...don't...want...him...t-t-to...come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.**

"That boy is absolutely selfish...you hardly got to go anywhere," teen Lily said .

**Just then, the doorbell rang – "Oh, good lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically – and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother.**

**Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their back while Dudley hit them. **

**Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

"Yes, because darling Dinky Duddydums can't cry in front of his big, tough friends," Fred said sarcastically. Everyone laughed.

**Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck,**

"What luck?" Hermione and the Weasleys snorted. Harry glared at them.

**Was sitting in the back of the Dursleys car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. **

Everyone looked sad at this, except Harry of course.

**His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

**"I'm warning you," he said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's,**

"Run for cover!" Fred and George shouted. Everyone laughed at their antics.

**"I'm warning you now, boy – any funny business, anything at all – and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

Everybody glared so hard at the book, Harry thought it would burst into flames.

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry. "Honestly..."**

**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.**

"We believe you now, Harry!" the D.A. shouted.

"Thanks, guys," Harry said.

**The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." **

"That's not gonna work!" Both James and Sirius's sing-songed.

**Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses.**

Everybody looked sad or angry at this.

**Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.**

"Brilliant!" many people laughed.

**He had been given a week in his cupboard for this,**

Everyone growled at the horrible punishment.

**even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). **

Everyone looked revolted. Harry shuddered. "That thing was disgusting."

**The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry.**

**Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished. **

"Good." teen Lily said.

**On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney.**

"You apparated," everyone said in awe. I don't think so...I think I flew," Harry said slowly. "That is still very impressive magic, how old were you when this happened Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore asked. "Er...Seven or eight I think." Everyone gaped at him. "Not even some grown wizards and witches can do that." Dumbledore said. Harry blushed.

**The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard)**

Everybody glared at the book, Harry thought it would explode from the intensity of the glares.

**was jump behind the big trashcans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump. **

Everybody laughed. "Harry you may be skinny, but not _that _skinny." Ron said. "Again, I was seven or eight, I didn't know what had happened, and I didn't know about magic." Harry said.

**It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.**

**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.**

"Is it just me, or does this Muggle like complaining about Harry?" Fred asked. Aria glared at him.

**"… roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**

**"I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying." **

Everybody face-palmed. "Nice Harry." Zacharias sneered at him. "Idiot." Everybody else in the room glared at him. Aria took her fathers wand and pointed it straight at the boys face. "Shut up, unless you want a nice nose job." she said. His eyes widened and he backed off. Aria sat down, handed back her fathers wand, picked up the book, and read again. Teen Harry shot her a grateful smile, which she returned.

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a moustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" **

"Yes they do!" both Sirius's yelled.

**Dudley and Piers sniggered.**

**"I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."**

**But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

"Nope, he comes up with them all on his own," Neville said.

"Hey!" all Harrys yelled.

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. **

"It wasn't bad either." said Harry before anybody could get mad.

**It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head that looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

Everybody laughed. "Now I feel bad, for insulting the poor gorilla." teen Harry said. Everybody laughed harder. "Why can't you be funny all the time Harry?" Fred asked.

**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favourite hobby of hitting him. **

Everybody growled.

**They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.**

**Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

"And now something's going to go wrong," Ron said.

**After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.**

**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.**

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house. **

"Your comparing your life to a snakes." Hannah Abbot said. Harry shrugged. "I think it makes sense." came Lunas dreamy voice. "The snake is locked in a tank, with zoo goers annoying and tormenting him, and Harry is locked in a cupboard-" she looked mad as she said this, which was strange seeing as she was normally so calm "and his realtives torment and annoy him."

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.**

**It winked.**

"Huh?" some people said.

**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

**The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:**

**"I get that all the time."**

**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

**The snake nodded vigorously. **

"Your talking to a snake?" teen James asked him. "Wait-your a Parselmouth?" Harry nodded. James looked shocked, but he smiled. "Your my son, I don't care, I will always be proud of you, no matter what." Harry smiled at the teen version of his father.

**"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.**

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.**

**Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**

**"Was it nice there?"**

**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see — so you've never been to Brazil?"**

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**

**Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

**"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. .**

"Keep your porky hands off him!" many people shouted.

**What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

"What happened?" everyone asked eagerly (except the people who knew.)

**Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.**

Silence for a moment "BRILLIANT!" Fred and George shouted and everyone dissolved into laughter. "That too is advanced magic Mr. Potter." Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling.

**The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

**As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come… Thanksss, amigo." **

**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?" **

"It vanished." Fred said. "WITH MAGIC!" he and his twin yelled. People sitting near them covered their ears. Jessica and Aria who were close punched them each on the shoulder. "Ow! Bloody hell!" they both yelled. The girls sat down with smirks.

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.**

"Those over exaggerating idiots!" Luna said, shocking everybody in the room.

**But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?".**

"Shut up you rat faced prat!" Hermione exclaimed.

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go — cupboard — stay — no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy. **

"NO MEALS?" everybody exploded. "HOW DARE PETUNIA STARVE MY SON!" teen Lily shrieked. "They didn't exactly starve-" "DIDN'T STARVE YOU, YOUR PRACTICALLY ANOREXIC!" she yelled. "I'm not anorexic!" "Just, please let me read." Aria said.

**Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food. **

Fred and George high-fived teen Harry.

**He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.**

"You remember?" Dumbledore asked quietly, not meeting Harry's eyes.

"Yes," Harry said, a little irritated that Dumbledore still wouldn't meet his eyes.

**This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all.**

Many girls were crying and some boys looked close to it. Imagine living ten years without knowing anything about your parents. Neville felt very bad for Harry. He never knew what his parents even looked like! Neville at least heard about them, and saw pictures, and got to visit them, even if they didn't recognize him.

**His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. **

"I have pictures now, thanks to Hagrid." teen Harry said, smiling.

**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened;**

"Yeah, because Sirius was falsely accused of murder and Lupin's got his furry little problem," Harry muttered to his friends.

**the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too.**

**A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look. **

"Apparation Potter." sneered Smith. Aria, Jessica, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna all glared at him. He recoilded. Damn those girls were scary.

**At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

Everybody looked down sadly. "That's the end of the chapter." Aria said. "Who wants to read?" "I do!" Hermione said. Aria handed her the book. **"Chapter 3: Letters From No One."**


	5. The Letters From No One

"The Letters From No one," Hermione read.

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started**

"How long were you in there?" Ron asked, glaring daggers at the book. "About 3 or 4 weeks." Harry answered quietly. Ron fists clenched.

**and Dudley had already broken his new cine-camera, crashed his remote-control aeroplane and, first time on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

"Poor lady!" Ginny said. "That lump broke all that stuff already?" teen Remus exclaimed.

**Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

"Can you imagine Malfoys group with Crabbe or Goyle as the leader?"

**This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had a place at Uncle Vernon's old school, Smeltings, Piers Polkiss was going there, too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local comprehensive.**

"No, you're going to HOGWARTS!" the D.A and Siriuis shouted.

**Dudley thought this was very funny.**

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"**

**"No thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick." Then he ran for it before Dudley could work out what he'd said. **

Many people laughed at that.

"Harrykins-"

"Why couldn't you-"

"Be this funny-"

"Normally?" The twins asked.

Harry shrugged. "Saving the school from Voldemort-" many winced. "countless times, doesn't really make you a joking person. And don't call me Harrykins!" This shut the twins up, knowing how much Harry had gone through.

**One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one her cats and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

"How dare she ruin perfectly good chocolate!" teen Remus yelled. "Calm down chocolate princess." teen James said. Remus glared at him.

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living-room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

"For what?" many people asked indignantly.

"Hitting people I suppose," Harry answered nonchalantly.

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life.**

"Can't have had a very exciting life then."

**Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe her Ickle Dudleykins,**

"Oh, this just keeps getting better and better!" George shouted above the laughter.

**he looked so handsome and grown-up.**

"If by grown-up, you mean more stupid than usual, then that's very accurate," Harry commented. Cue laughter.

**Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in grey water.**

**"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question**.

"Oh, Merlin forbid he asked a _question!" _Luna said angrily, shocking the room.

**"Your new school uniform," she said.**

**Harry looked in the bowl again.**

**"Oh," he said. "I didn't realise it had to be so wet."**

"Sorry sweetheart, sarcasm doesn't work on her." teen Lily said.

**"Don't be stupid," snapped aunt Petunia. "I'm dying some of Dudley's old things grey for you. It'll look like everyone else's when I've finished."**

"I seriously doubt that." Ginny said.

**Harry seriously doubted this, **

Ginny blinked.

**but thought it best not to argue. **

**He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smeltings stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

**They heard the click of the letter-box and flop of letters on the doormat.**

**"Get the post, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

"Shock of my life, that was," Harry said.

"You mean he made the lump do something?" Cho asked incredulously.

"It didn't last long...but yes," Harry answered.

**"Make Harry get it."**

**"Get the post, Harry."**

"No, the fat lump should do it, maybe _walk _for once!" Luna said. Everbody started at her.

**"Make Dudley get it."**

**"Poke him with your Smeltings stick, Dudley."**

"That's not fair!" Hannah Abbot yelled.

**Harry dodged the Smeltings stick and went to get the post. three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and - a letter for Harry. Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band.**

**No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would?**

"I would!" nearly everybody yelled. "I did!" Neville, Ginny, Ron, and Luna, admitted.

**He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet, here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

**Mr. H. Potter**

**the Cupboard under the Stairs**

**4 Privet Drive**

**Little Whinging**

**Surrey**

"Sir, why didn't you ever come investigate after the letters were written?" Harry asked Dumbledore.

"They're self-addressed," Dumbledore said gravely. "They also change the address until they land in the designated destination."

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

"Stamp?" Michael Corner asked.

"A small square muggles stick onto their letters so they can be taken long distances," Hermione explained.

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion,**

"GRYFFINDOR!" all the Gryffindors cheered.

**an eagle,**

RAVENCLAW!" the Ravenclaws cheered.

**a badger**

"HUFFLEPUFF!" this time the Hufflepuffs cheered.

**and a snake **

Everybody booed.

**surrounding a large letter 'H'.**

"HOGWARTS!" everybody yelled.

**"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter-bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

"Oh, that was so funny, I'm going to die of laughter." Luna said said sarcastically. "When did Luna become, so...Awake?" Ron muttered to teen Harry who shrugged.

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down and slowly began to open the yellow envelope. Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk ..."**

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"**

"SHUT UP!" nearly everybody yelled.

**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.**

**"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it.**

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped. Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line.**

**For a moment it looked as though she might faint.**

**She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

**" Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"**

**They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smeltings stick.**

"If any of us did that to mum, we wouldn't be able to sit down for a month," Ron said.

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

"It's Harry's why should you read it?" Neville said.

**"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

**"Get out both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

**Harry didn't move.**

"Oh, here comes the temper." Ron said.

**"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.**

"And, there it is." Ron said. "Lily's temper." both sets of Marauders said.

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

"No, it's Harrys!"

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, So Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between the door and the floor.**

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"**

**"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

"Why would we follow _them?_"

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -" Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer ... yes, that's best ... we won't do anything..."**

**"But -"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out all that dangerous nonsense?"**

"STAMP OUT?" everybody roared. Dumbledore looked absolutley murderous, shocking his students. He was thinking of Ariana, his little sister who had died from trying to stamp out magic. "By, stamp out, what do they mean?" he asked as calmly as he could. "They never hit me, if thats what you think. Well, not usually anyway." Everybody growled. "I think they thought if they locked me in a small space, and kept me as depressed as possible, the magic would fade away."

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.**

"You mean he fit?" Colin Creevey asked.

"No, just his head," Harry answered.

**"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door.**

**"Who's writing to me?"**

"HOGWARTS!" everyone shouted.

**"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**

**"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily. "It had my cupboard on it."**

"You tell him," Ernie McMillan said.

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

"Good." everybody said.

**"Er – yes, Harry – about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking...you're really getting a bit big for it … we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."**

"SECOND BEDROOM?" everybody thundered. "THAT FAT LARD HAD TWO ROOMS, AND YOU HAD A CUPBOARD?" George yelled incredeously. Harry nodded looking down at his knees. Hermione had dropped the book, because her hands were shaking from anger. Ron had stood up and left to a room he had wished up, and Harry thought he could her glass breaking from it. Ron came back pale-faced and fists clenched.

"THOSE DAMN DURSLEYS!" Hermione shrieked searching for the correct page. "Hermione...Did you just swear?" Ron asked. "Well, I've hung out with you two so much, it must have rubbed of on me."

**"Why?" said Harry.**

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs now."**

**The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms:**

Everybody yelled in outrage. "FOUR BEDROOMS?" "THOSE DURSLEYS ARE DEAD!" "HARRY WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING?" Harry was looking very uncomfortable.

**One for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister Marge), one where Dudley slept and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into Dudley's first bedroom.**

**It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to his room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him.**

**Nearly everything in here was broken.**

"Why do your relatives keep the broken things then?" Susan Bones asked.

"No idea," Harry answered honestly. "Probably for an excuse to not give me a room." Everybody growled.

**The month-old cine-camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over next door's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favourite program had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air-rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. **

"Slick." George snorted.

**Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they hadn't been touched before. **

"Doubt he knew how to read." Michael Corner muttered.

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother: "I don't want him in there...I need that room...make him get out..." **

"Harry needs that room, idiot!"

**Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it. **

**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. **

"Melins beard, this kid is such a brat!"

**Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it.**

**They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —'"**

"If he wanted to read it, why didn't he instead of yelling it out?' Ginny asked. "He probably just wanted to read it because it was mine." Ginny growled at his answer.

**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.**

Ron and Hermione burst out laughing. As did Jessica, Aria and the adult Marauders. "What?" everybody else said. "L-later." Ron said as he calmed down.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.**

**"Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley — go — just go."**

**Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan. **

"Uh-oh." Ron and Hermione said. "What's wrong with my plans?" Harry asked. "Well, they never work." Ron said. "Yes they do!" "Okay, they don't work most of the time." Harry glared at him.

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door —**

**"AAAAARRRGH!"**

"What happened?" Colin Creevey asked excitedly.

**Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something alive!**

**Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face.**

Everybody burst out laughing.

**Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

**"I want —" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.**

**Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day.**

**He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**

**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up." **

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon." **

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him. **

**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

"I think someone's a little paranoid," Justin Finch-Fletchley said.

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two-dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. **

**While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

"Ginny." the twins and Ron said. she blushed and hit them. "Well, if you had, you might have been my best frined instead of this git here." he said gesturing to Ron. "Oi! Shut it Potter." "Make me Weasley." "Ok, I will. _Silencio!_" Harry glared at him. Hermione sighed and took the curse off. "Thanks Hermione, good thing one of my friends isn't a git."

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**

**"No post on Sundays," **

"Not for wizards!" Harry said.

**he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, **

Everybody laughed. "He's gone mad!" "He always was."

**Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one —**

"SEEKER SKILLS!" everybody yelled.

**"Out! OUT!"**

**Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.**

"GET OFF OF HIM!" the whole D.A. and teen Marauders shouted.

**When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**

**He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

"About bloody time your someone punished your cousin," Angelina Johnson said angrily.

**They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.**

**"Shake 'em off… shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

Everybody shook their heads in disbelief.

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

"Ah, Ickle Diddykins-" George began.

"Welcome to Harry's life," Fred finished sourly.

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering… **

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**

**She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

**Mr. H. Potter**

**Room 17**

**Railview Hotel**

**Cokeworth**

**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room. **

**"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her.**

**Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

"He is so stupid!"

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. **

"Dud, he's always been mad." teen Harry said.

**Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**

**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled. **

**"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."**

**Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday — and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. **

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" "Guys, it's not my birthday now. Its not even my birthday in the book yet!"

**Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun — last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. **

**Still, you weren't eleven every day. **

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling.**

**"Okay that isn't good," Terry Boot said.**

**He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought. **

**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"**

**It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there. **

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"**

**A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.**

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"**

**It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of crisps each and four bananas. **

**He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.**

**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.**

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver post. **

**Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket. **

"You could have gotten sick! You could have died from cold!" teen Lily fretted. "I was fine." teen Harry told her.

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**

**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. **

**Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

**One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine — maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him**

— **three… two… one…**

**BOOM. **

**The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

"That's the end of the chapter." Hermione said. "Why don't we take a short break, then continue." Dumbledore suggested. Everybody nodded. As everybody got up to do whatever nonsense they were going to do, a bright blue light apperead in the middle of the room. A boy with white-blond hair and a pale pointed face appeared. "Malfoy?"


	6. The Keeper of the Keys

**Chapter 6: The Keeper of the Keys**

"Malfoy?" Draco Malfoy stood there looking wildly around. "Where am I? How did I get here?" he asked. "Your in the Room of Requirement and we brought you here." said Jessica gesturing at herself and Aria. "Who are you?" They explained the whole situation to him. He snorted when they were done. "Why would I want to read about _Potter?_" he asked. "You play a suprprisingly big role in these books, ecspecially in the sixth and seventh." Draco raised his eyebrows. "Whatever. What did I miss?" he asked. They filled him in on the last few chapters. "A _cupboard?_" he asked incrediously. Teen Harry nodded looking down. "Merlin, they can't do that to a kid! Stupid fat Muggles." Draco huffed. "Did you just defend me Malfoy?" teen Harry asked. "N-no I was stating a fact that it's child abuse." Draco said his cheeks turning pink. They went on with their break and 5 minutes later everybody came back to read. "Who wants to read?" "I will." teen Remus said. He took the book and opened it.

**"Chapter 4: Keeper of the Keys"**

"Hagrid!" nearly everybody yelled.

**BOOM! They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake.**

**"Where's the canon?" he said stupidly.**

"Canon?" Ron asked. "It's a sort of big metal toob that shoots things."

**There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands**

"HE BROUGHT A GUN WITH TWO ELEVEN YEAR OLDS?" everybody who knew what a gun was yelled. Everybody else looked confused. "Whats a gun?" Draco asked. "It's an extremely dangerous weapon. It shoots round balls of metal that go at lightning speed, and when made contact with a person or animal, it can kill or seriously injure."

**- now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.**

**"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you - I'm armed!"**

"It's a term used to say that the person is holding a weapon," Hermione said before Ron could open his mouth.

**There was a pause. Then – SMASH!**

"Moony, you're supposed to yell!" teen Sirius whined. "Like this-SMASH!" he yelled. Everybody covered their ears. Aria and Jessica's hands twitched toward their parents pockets. Sirius hid behind teen James who shoved him so he fell off his chair. Everybody laughed then returned to the book.

**A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.**

"HAGRID!" The Gryffindors cheered.

**The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.**

**"Couldn't make a cup o' tea could yeh? It's not been an easy journey ..."**

"Typical Hagrid," Dumbledore said fondly.

**He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.**

**"Budge up, yeh great lump," **

Everybody laughed. "Yeah Hagrid!"

**said the stranger.**

**Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified behind Uncle Vernon.**

"Okay, the hippo can hide the horse, but I doubt he can hide the elephant." Fred and George said. "Don't insult the animals Freddie!" Jessica said. He grinned at her. She blushed. Aria and Harry exchanged knowing smiles.

**"An' here's Harry!" said the giant.**

**Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.**

**"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yeh dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes."**

**"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"**

Everyone laughed loudly as they pictured Harry's purple-faced uncle against Hagrid.

**"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune,"**

"Ah, Hagrid," George said fondly.

**said the giant. He reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber,**

"Thank goodness that's out of the way," Hermione said, breathing a sigh of relief.

**and threw it into a corner of the room.**

**Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.**

"Well, I know a _rat _that should be trodden on. With the Whomping Willow." Ron muttered darkly.

**"Anyway - Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here - I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."**

"It was actually pretty good."

**From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box.**

**"He got you a cake," Hermione said with a smile.**

**Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with **_**Happy Birthday Harry **_**written on it in green icing.**

**Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"**

**The giant chuckled.**

**"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."**

**He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.**

**"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind." **

"Hagrid." most of the room said fondly.

**His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shrivelled crisp packets in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire.**

**It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warm rush over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.**

**The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy packet of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs and a bottle of some amber liquid which he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage.**

**Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."**

"As if he needs any more fattening up," Malfoy drawled.

**The giant chuckled darkly.**

**"Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' any more, Dursley, don' worry."**

Draco blinked.

**He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant.**

**Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."**

**The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.**

**"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course.**

"Nope," Harry said nonchalantly.

**Er - no," said Harry.**

**Hagrid looked shocked.**

**"Sorry," Harry said quickly.**

"Why did you apologise?" Ginny asked. "It's your relatives' fault."

"Force of habit I guess," Harry replied.

**"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learnt it all?"**

**"All what?" asked Harry.**

**"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"**

**He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.**

**"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy - this boy - knows nothing abou' - about ANYTHING?"**

"Yep." Ron said grinning at him. Harry hit him. "Ow!"

**Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.**

**"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."**

**But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."**

"Way to confuse the hell out of him Hagrid." Dean said.

**"What world?"**

**Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.**

**"DURSLEY!" he boomed.**

**Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like 'Mimblewimble'.**

**Hagrid stared wildly at Harry."But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."**

**"What? My - my mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"**

"Wait, you find out _your _famous and you ask about your _parents _fame?" Draco asked. Harry shrugged. "It really didn't register yet."

**"Yeh don' know ... yeh don' know ..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare. Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally.**

**Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.**

**"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"**

"Forbid Hagrid? Yeah that'll work."

**A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.**

**"You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"**

**"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.**

**STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.**

"Just give up already," Ron said in exasperation.

"Ron...you're talking to the book," Harry said amusedly. Ron instantly shut up.

**Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.**

**"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry - yer a wizard."**

"That was blunt." Neville said.

**There was a silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.**

**"I'm a what?" Harry gasped. **

"I'm a what? Really Harry?" Ginny asked. "I was eleven, and I had no idea what was going on!"

**"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin good'un I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? **

**An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."**

**"Finally!" Ron said.**

**Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea.**

**He pulled out the letter and read:**

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore**

**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc Chr. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

**Dear Mr. Potter,**

**We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.**

**Yours sincerely,**

**Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.**

**Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"**

"That's your first question?" Hermione asked. "Everything else made sense. Well sort of." Harry said.

**"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled out an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl a long quill and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note which Harry could read upside down:**

"Harry." Hermione said shaking her head fondly.

**Dear Mr. Dumbledore**

**Given Harry his letter. Taking him to buy his things tomorrow. Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.**

**Hagrid.**

**Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door and threw the owl out into the storm.**

"The poor owl," Luna said. "First you stuff it in your pocket and then throw it out into a raging storm."

**Then he came back and sat down as though this was normal as talking on the telephone.**

**Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.**

**"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.**

**"He's not going," he said.**

"YES HE IS!"

**Hagrid grunted.**

**"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said. **

**"A what?" said Harry, interested.**

**"A Muggle," said Hagrid. "It's what we call non-magic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."**

**"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him!**

Everybody growled. Dumbledore closed his eyes.

**Wizard, indeed!"**

**"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a - a wizard?"**

**"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly."Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was?**

"MRS. POTTER/LILY/MY MUM WAS NOT DRATTED!" everybody roared.

**Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that - that school - and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog-spawn turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was – a freak!**

"SHE WAS NOT A FREAK!" Teenage Lily had tears in her eyes. Older Lily was looking at the floor. Both James's were hugging her tightly.

**But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"**

"They should be you jealous b-" Sirius was cut off by a warning glance and gesture toward the kids by Lily. "Horse!" he said replacing what he was originally going to say.

**She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed like she had been wanting to say all this for years. **

**"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be the same, just as strange, just as - as abnormal - and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!" **

Everybody froze, staring at the book in horror. Then the staring turned to Harry. "That's how you found out?" Hermione whispered, tears in her eyes. Harry nodded looking down.

**Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!"**

**"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter?**

**It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"**

**"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently.**

**The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.**

**"I never expected this," he said in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh - but someone's gotta - yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin."**

**He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.**

**"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh - mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it ..."**

**He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows -"**

"VOLDEMORT, VOLDEMORT, VOLDEMORT!" Harry said loudly. Nearly everybody winced.

**"Who?"**

**"Well - I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."**

**"Why not?"**

**"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went ... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was ..."**

"Voldemort." Harry said.

**Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.**

**"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.**

**"Nah - can't spell it. All right - Voldemort."**

"You got Hagrid to say it?" teen Sirius asked shocked.

**Hagrid shuddered. 'Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this — this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too — some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him — an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway. Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day!**

Both pairs of Lily and James smiled, and on Lily's case blushed.

**Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before… probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.**

**Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em… maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' — an' —'**

**Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.**

A lot of people in the room were crying. Even Draco looked down sadly.

**'Sorry,' he said. 'But it's that sad — knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find — anyway You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then — an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing — he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then.**

"Probably both." said Ron.

**"But he couldn't do it.**

**Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh — took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even — but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry.**

**No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age — the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts "**

Teen Lily gasped. "As in Marlene McKinnon?" she asked. Dumbledore nodded sadly, and Lily curled up next to James, head on his shoulder. The Weasleys all had their heads down, as did Susan Bones.

**"— an' you was only a baby, an' you lived.'**

**Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before — and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.**

"Y-you remember that?" Ginny asked tears trailing down her freckled face. Harry nodded, becoming annoyed with all the sympathetic looks.

**Hagrid was watching him sadly.**

**'Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot….'**

**'Load of old tosh,' said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there.**

"So did I." nearly the whole room muttered.

**"Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.**

**'Now, you listen here, boy,' he snarled, 'I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured —"**

"WHAT?" they all roared. "Did they beat you Harry?" Ron asked. Harry looked down at the floor. "Not really. Dudley hit me all the time, and sometimes my aunt or uncle would, but they didn't _beat _me."

**"and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdoes, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion —"**

"WHAT?" everybody yelled. Yes, even Draco Malfoy, who blushed when nearly all eyes turned to him.

**"asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types — just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end –'" **

Everybody looked ready to explode. "How did you stand there listening to him talk about your parents like this?" Dean asked. Harry just shrugged.

**"But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat.**

**Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, 'I'm warning you, Dursley — I'm warning you — one more word…'**

**In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.**

**'That's better,' said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.**

**Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.**

**'But what happened to Vol-, sorry — I mean, You-Know-Who?'**

**'Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see… he was gettin' more an' more powerful — why'd he go?**

**Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die."**

**"Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back."**

**"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on — I dunno what it was, no one does — but somethin' about you stumped him, all right.'"**

**"Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake."**

"Bloody pessimistic."

**"A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?"**

"It doesn't work like that Harry." "No, really? I never noticed that, being in my fifth year at Hogwarts."

**"'Hagrid,' he said quietly, 'I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard.'**

**To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.**

**'Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?'**

**Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it… every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry… chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach… dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back… and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?**

**Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.**

**'See?' said Hagrid. 'Harry Potter, not a wizard — you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts.'**

**But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.**

**"'Haven't I told you he's not going?' he hissed. 'He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish — spell books and wands and —'**

**'If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him,' growled Hagrid. 'Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled—'**

**'I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!' yelled Uncle Vernon.**

"He is so dead." the twins said together.

**But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, 'NEVER —" he thundered, "— INSULT — ALBUS — DUMBLEDORE — IN — FRONT — OF — ME!'"**

**He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.**

Everyone burst out laughing.

"Oh man—" Fred said breathlessly.

"—Hagrid is—" George added gasping for air.

"—bloody brilliant!" The twins exclaimed as they fell out of their chairs laughing.

**"Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.**

**Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.**

**'Shouldn'ta lost me temper,' he said ruefully, 'but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do.'"**

**Everyone laughed even harder from that and could only nod their heads in agreement.**

**"He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.**

**'Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts'" he said. 'I'm — er — not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff — one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job.'**

**'Why aren't you supposed to do magic?' asked Harry.**

**'Oh, well — I was at Hogwarts meself but I — er — got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore.'**

**'Why were you expelled?'**

"He's never told anyone, don't ask. Wait...You three figure it out don't you?" Dumbledore said smiling at the trio. They only smiled mysteriously.

**"'It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow,' said Hagrid loudly. 'Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that.'"**

"Way to change the subject Hagrid," Ginny said.

**"He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.**

**'You can kip under that,' he said. 'Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' doormice in one o' the pockets.'**

"Eww!" most of the girls shrieked. Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Jessica, and Aria all rolled their eyes.

"That's the end of the chapter." teen Remus said. "Wait, we didn't show our guest any embarrasing stuff!" Sirius said gesturing to Draco. Jessica Aria, and all four Harrys eyes went completley wide. "No, Sirius, don't please, I'll do anything!" Harry begged. Sirius ignored him. "Hmmmm...A different one...Oh, I got it!" he said grinning evily.

All the Harrys and the twin girls facepalmed, faces red, and in the girls case, hair blue. Sirius got out the Penseive again, and put in a memory. "After him, this is a different memory, so if you wanna see it." Everybody nodded eagerly. Draco went in with Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny. A similar scene from the last memory met their eyes, except the screen was now a man who looked in his early twenties or late teens walking through a deserted street. "Oooh, love this song, I call Mr. Todd!" "You love every song, and I call Lucy, Harry your Anthony!" Aria said. She turned her hair long, blond and matted. Jessica turned her hair black, with a white streak. Then, as the boy on screen began to sing, so did Harry.

**I feel you, Johanna**

**I feel you**

**Do they think that walls can hide you?**

**Even now I'm at your window**

**I am in the dark beside you**

**buried sweetly in your yellow hair,**

**Johanna**

Jessica's turn, though Harry would occasionally be in the background.

**And are you beautiful and pale, with yellow hair, like her?**

**I'd want you beautiful and pale, the way I've dreamed you were,**

**Johanna**

**(Johanna) **

**And if you're beautiful what then with yellow hair, like wheat**

**I think we shall not meet again my little dove, my sweet**

**Johanna**

"This is disgusting!" Draco said, as the scary man with black hair on screen was sliting peoples thoroats. Everybody was blocking the screen from view.

**(I'll steal you, Johanna)**

**Goodbye, Johanna**

**You're gone, and yet you're mine**

**I'm fine, Johanna,**

**I'm fine**

Aria's turn.

**Smoke! Smoke!**

**Sign of the devil, sign of the devil,**

**set it on fire**

**Witch! Witch!**

**Smell it sir, an evil smell,**

**every night at the Vespers' bell,**

**smoke that comes from the mouth of hell,**

**set it on fire, set it on fire!**

**Mischief, mischief!**

**Mischief!**

Back to Jessica and Harry.

**And if I never hear your voice, my turtle-dove, my dear**

**I still have reason to rejoice the way your head is clear**

**Johanna**

**(I feel you,)**

**And in that darkeness when I'm blind with what I can't forget**

**(Johanna)**

**It's always morning in my mind, my little lamb, my pet**

**Johanna**

**You stay, Johanna**

**(Johanna)**

**The way I dreamed you were**

**Oh look, Johanna, a star**

**(Buried sweetly in your yellow hair)**

**A shooting star!**

Aria's turn!

**There, there!**

**Somebody somebody, look up there,**

**didn't I tell you, smell that air,**

**set it on fire**

**Quick, Sir, run and tell!**

**Go on 'a Mole little ratchet spell,**

**there it is, there it is, the ungodly smell,**

**tell it to the Beadle and police as well,**

**tell 'em, tell 'em, help, fiend!**

**set it on fire**

**set it on fire**

**Mischief, mischief!**

Jessica and Harry.

**And though I'll think of you I guess, until the day I die,**

**I think I miss you less and less as every day goes by**

**Johanna**

Just when the memory watchers thought it was safe, another man's throat was slit, and blood squirted everywhere. Hermione had her eyes hidden in her arms, as did Ginny. Draco, Harry and Ron all sat grimancing with their hands in front of their eyes.

**(Johanna)**

**And you'd be beautiful and pale and look too much like her**

**If only angels could prevail we'd be the way we were**

**Johanna**

**(I feel you, Johanna) **

**Wake up, Johanna!**

**Unnerve the bright red day**

**We learn Johanna, to say**

**Goodbye**

**(I'll steal you)**

The song ended.

They came out of the Pensieve. Draco was gaping at Harry, then the two girls. "Wait so, Harry's a stalker, Jessica's a killer, and Aria's a crazy hobo lady?" Everybody laughed, then rushed forward to the Pensieve. "Wait, what the hell is this movie about?" Ron asked the two girls. "It's about a man, named Benjamin barker, now known as Sweeney Todd, who was sent to jail under false charge for 15 years, by a judge who stole his wife. His wife died, and the judge adopted his daughter Johanna. Mr. Todd is obsessed with revenge on this judge, and he becomes a barber, and he slits peoples throats, and the woman he meets Mrs. Lovett,

owns a meat pie shop, but they are in hard times, so she doesn't have real meat. So, whenever Mr. Todd kills somebody, they use the person as meat." "That's disgusting!" "I know. And the judge keeps Johanna locked away in a tower, and she sits at the window all day, wishing she could be free, then Anthony, the by who's part Harry sang in that song, sees her, and falls in love with her, so he helps her escape." Jessica explained.

"Alright, now that we've had our fun," said Dumbledore emerging from the Penseive. "Let us read the next chapter. Who wants to read?" "I will." said Luna. He handed her the book. **"Chapter 5-Diagon Alley."**


	7. Diagon Alley

**A/N: I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! Hope you like the chapter! ~J.O.L.W**

**"Chapter 5- Diagon Alley" **Luna read.

**Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight."It was a dream," he told himself firmly. "I dreamt a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."**

"You are the biggest pessimist ever." Neville said shaking his head.

**There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.**

"Owl?" Hermione asked. teen Harry nodded.

**"And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door," **

"Pessimist." everybody chorused.

**Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still hadn't opened his eyes. It had been such a good dream.**

**Tap. Tap. Tap.**

**"All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up."**

**He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him.**

**The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him.**

Teen James and Sirius exchanged evil grins. "No Prongs, Padfoot." Remus said. "Awww you ruin all the fun Moony!" Sirius said.

**He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered to the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.**

**"Don't do that." **

**Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.**

**"Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl -"**

**"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.**

"He won't know how, he doesn't know wizard money." Hermione said. "You're talking to a book." Draco pointed out. She closed her mouth.

**"What?"**

**"He wants payin fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets."**

**Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets - bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, mint humbugs, teabags ... finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.**

**"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.**

**"Knuts?"**

**"The little bronze ones."**

**Harry counted five little bronze coins and the owl held out its leg so he could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then it flew out through the open window.**

**Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up and stretched."Best be off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."**

**Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. He had just thought of something which made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture.**

Teen Sirius and James eyed each other again. "No!" Remus said. They pouted.

**"Um - Hagrid?"**

**"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.**

**"I haven't got any money**

"Pshhh Harry Potter doesn't have money."

**- and you heard Uncle Vernon last night - he won't pay for me to go to learn magic."**

**"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'ye think year parents didn't leave yeh anything?"**

**"But if their house was destroyed -"**

"Really Harry?" "Eleven years old, new to magic, tired." "Right."

**"They didn't keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."**

**"Wizards have banks?"**

"Yes."

**"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."**

**Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding.**

**"Goblins?"**

**"Yeah - so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want terkeep safe - As a matter o' fact, gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you - gettin' things from Gringotts - knows he can trust me, see."**

Dumbledore smiled fondly thinking of his former student, now gamekeeper.

**"Got everythin'? Come on, then."**

**Harry followed Hagrid out on to the rock. **

**The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.**

**"How did you get here?" Harry asked, looking around for another boat.**

**"Flew," said Hagrid.**

"_Flew?"_ people asked shocked.

**"Flew?"**

**"Yeah - but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh"**

**They settled down in the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.**

"We are too Harry." Ron said.

**"Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter - er - speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"**

**"Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat and they sped off towards land.**

**"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.**

**"Spells - enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there are dragons guardin' the high security vaults.**

"There are." Draco said. "I went to my aunt's vault, which is high security, and we had to walk past a dragon, with these things that make noise, and the dragon is trained to expect pain when it hears the noise."

"That's barabaric!" people exclaimed. Draco nodded.

**And then yeh gotta find yer way - Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."**

**Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry had learnt from Uncle Vernon that people like to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he'd never had so many questions in his life**

**"Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.**

"Still is." a lot of people said.

**"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Harry asked, before he could stop himself.**

"Yes." "I know that now!"

**"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts,**

Dumbledore nodded. "Hogwarts is home." he said with a smile.

**so old Cornelius Fudge**

"BOO!"

**got the job. Bungler if ever there was one.**

"GO HAGRID!"

**So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin fer advice."**

"Dumbledore could be a better Minister than anybody, of course he'd go to him for advice." Ginny said. "Thank you Miss Weasley."

**"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?"**

"Mess things up, send fat toads on us, make stupid laws, call Harry and Professor Dumbledore liars." surprisingly Draco said. Everybody stared at him. "What? It's true." "You called me 'Harry' instead of 'Potter'" teen Harry said surprised. Draco shrugged.

**"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."**

**"Why?"**

**Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."**

**At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper and they clambered up the stone steps on to the street. Passers-by stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Harry couldn't blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters**

"Huh?" the Purebloods said. "It's this thing that tells you how long you've been parked somewhere. For cars. You have to fill it with money before time runs out, or else they can take your car away." Hermione said. "Well that's dumb." Fred snorted.

**and saying loudly, "See that, Harry? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"**

**"Hagrid," said Harry panting a bit as he ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"**

**"Well, so they say," said Hagrid.**

**"Crikey, I'd like a dragon."**

**"You'd like one?"**

**"Wanted one ever since I was a kid - here we go."**

**They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand 'Muggle money', as he called it, gave the notes to Harry so he could buy their tickets.**

**People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.**

**"Still got yer letter, Harry?" he asked as he counted took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.**

**"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list of everything yeh need."Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before and read:**

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY**

**UniformFirst-year students will require1.**

**Three sets of plain work robes (black)**

**2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear**

"Does anyone even wear those?" asked Sirius.

"Not me."

**3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)**

**4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings**

**Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags**

**Set Books**

**All students should have a copy of each of the following**

**The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk**

**A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot**

**Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling**

**A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch**

**One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore**

**Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger**

**Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander**

**The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble**

**Other Equipment**

**1 wand**

**1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)**

**1 set glass or crystal phials**

**1 telescope**

**1 set brass scales**

**Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad**

**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST-YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS**

**"Can we buy all this in London?" Harry wondered aloud.**

**"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.**

**Harry had never been to London before**

Everybody sighed sadly.

**Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not too used to getting there in an ordinary way.**

**He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow. "I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said, as they climbed a broken-down escalator which led up to a bustling road lined with shops.**

**Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry had to do was keep close behind him.**

**They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger bars and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand.**

**This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks?**

"Yes."

**Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up?**

"They aren't smart enough to think of this," James pointed out.

**If Harry hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor**

Fred and George gasped and fell off their chairs. They sat back down, and as he did, his hand landed on Jessica's knee. She went bright red and let out a little squeak. "Sorry." Fred said going red too. Everybody was staring at them. JESSICA POTTER AND FRED WEASLEY BOTH JUST _BLUSHED. _Today was a very weird day.

**he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help trusting him.**

**"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."**

**It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it.**

"Muggles can't see it. I had to guide my parents inside." Hermione said.

**Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it.**

**Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside.**

**For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe.**

**A little man in a top hat was talking to the old barman, who was quite bald and looked like a gummy walnut.**

**The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the barman reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"**

**"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Harry's shoulder and making Harry's knees buckle.**

Everybody laughed.

**"Good Lord," said the barman, peering at Harry, "is this - can this be**

"And so it begins." Harry sighed. Draco eyed him. Didn't he love his fame, always had to be in the spotlight? Maybe he was wrong. If only Potter had taken his hand...No, Draco you don't want to be friends with Potter!

**The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent."Bless my soul," whispered the old barman. "Harry Potter ... what an honor He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed towards Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes. "Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back."**

**Harry didn't know what to say. Everyone was looking at him. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.**

**Then there was a great scraping of chairs and, next moment, Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.**

**"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."**

**"So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."**

**"Always wanted to shake your hand - I'm all of a flutter."**

**"Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you. Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."**

**"I've seen you before!" said Harry, as DedalusDiggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to me once in a shop."**

**"He remembers!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? He remembers me!"**

**Harry shook hands again and again - Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.**

Harry rolled his eyes.

**A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching."Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."**

**"P-P-Potter," **

The Golden trio groaned.

**stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you."**

**"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell"**

**"D-Defence Against the D-D-Dark Arts,"**

**muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it.**

**"N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?" he laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.**

**But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble. "Must get on - lots ter buy. Come on, Harry."**

**Doris Crockford shook his hand one last time**

"Oooh Harry's got a fangirl." Aria said. He raised an eyebrow at her, gesturing at Ginny, Cho, and half the girls in the room who were staring at him, with glazed over eyes. ARia just laughed.

**and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a dustbin and a few weeds.**

**Hagrid grinned at Harry."Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblinter meet yeh - mind you, he's usually tremblin**

**"Is he always that nervous?"**

**"Oh, yeah, poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin outta books but then he took a year off ter get some first-hand experience... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject - now, where's me umbrella?" Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming.**

**Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the dustbin."Three up... two across..." he muttered "Right, stand back, Harry."**

**"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."**

**He grinned at Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.**

**The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self-Stirring - Collapsible said a sign hanging over them.**

**"Yeah, you'll be needin one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."**

**Harry wished he had about eight more eyes.**

"So you can look like a spider?" Ron asked.

**He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.**

**A plump woman outside an apothecary's was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen sickles an ounce, they're mad..."**

"I wonder if that was mum...She was complaining about the price when she got home that day." George said.

**A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown and Snowy.**

**Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever -"**

"Nope that's the Firebolt." Harry said grinning at the thought of his broom. Then he stopped. Umbridge had taken his broom. Pink toad.

**There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon ...**

**"Gringotts," said had reached a snowy-white building which towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was - "Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps towards him.**

**The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:**

_**Enter Stranger, but take Heed**_

_**Of what awaits the sin of greed,**_

_**For those who take, but do not earn,**_

_**Must pay dearly in their turn,**_

_**So if you seek beneath floors,**_

_**A treasure that was never yours,**_

_**Thief, you have been warned, beware**_

_**Of finding more than treasure there.**_

"Harry's gonna rob it." Ron said. "No I won't! I'm not stuipid!" "Are you sure about that?" Ron asked. Harry hit him. "Ow! Anyway, it says it's impossible, so you'll do it."

**"You have his key, sir?"**

**"Got it here somewhere," **

**said Hagrid and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog-biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.**

**"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a golden key.**

**The goblin looked at it closely. "That seems to be in order."**

**"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."**

**The goblin read the letter carefully. "Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook **

**Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog-biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook towards one of the doors leading off the hall.**

**"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked.**

**"Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously.**

**"Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."**

**Griphook held open the door for them. Harry, who had expected to see more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downwards and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks towards them. They climbed in - Hagrid with some difficulty - and were off.**

**At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible.**

"Wow, that's a lot to remember actually."

**Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but was too late. They plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.**

**"I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"**

"Stalactites are on the roof, stalagmites are on the floor" Lily explained.

**"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it,"**

"Think I prefer Hagrid's answer." George said with a laugh.

**said Hagrid. "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."He did look very green and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees trembling.**

**Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver, heaps of little bronze Knuts.**

Everybody was staring at teen Harry, who was avoiding eye contact with any of the Weasleys.

**"All yours," smiled Hagrid.**

**All Harry's - it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking.**

Everybody glared at the book.

**How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep?**

"Oh because table scraps and hand me down clothes about five times bigger, is so BLOODY EXPENSIVE!" Hermione and Draco yelled. They looked at each other in shcok, as did everybody else in the room. Maybe Draco wasn't that bad.

**And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.**

**Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.**

**"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe feryeh." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen, now, please, and can we go more slowly?"**

**"One speed only," said Griphook**

**They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine and Harry leant over the side to try and see what was down at the dark bottom but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.**

"Only Harry would lean over a Gringotts cart." Hermione said shaking her head.

**Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.**

**"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.**

"Woah!" a lot of people said.

**"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.**

**"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.**

**"About once every ten years," said Griphook, with a rather nasty grin.**

"Er...well he's pleasant."

**Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top-security vault, Harry was sure, and he leant forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least - but at first he thought it was empty.**

**Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor.**

Harry face-palmed. How it took him so long, he would never know.

**Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but he knew better than to ask.**

**"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.**

**One wild cart-ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money.**

**He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life - more money than even Dudley had ever had.**

"Good."

**"Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding towards Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? Hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.**

**Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.**

**"Hogwarts dear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."**

Draco stiffened. Didn't he first meet Harry in Madam Malkins? Oh no.

**In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool**

Everybody looked at Draco.

**while a second witch pinned up his long black robes.**

**Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head and began to pin it to the right length.**

**"Hullo," said the boy, "Hogwarts too?"**

**"Yes," said Harry.**

**"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice.**

"I do not!" Draco said. "Yes you do." most of the room said.

**"Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first-years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."**

Everybody raised their eyebrows at Draco, who flushed.

**Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.**

"Hey!" Draco said indignantly.

**"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on."No," said Harry. "Play Quidditch at all? "No," said Harry again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.**

Teen James gasped and clutched his heart. "My son doesn't know what Quidditch is?"

**"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"**

**"No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.**

"Sorry." Draco muttered. Harry looked at him, shocked.

**"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been – imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"**

"Hey!" all the Hufflepuffs shouted. "Sorry." Draco said again.

**"Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting."I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding towards the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice-creams to show he couldn't come in.**

**"That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."**

**"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"**

**"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking this boy less and less every second.**

Draco looked very uncomftorable as glares were shot his way.

**"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage**

"He is NOT savage!"

**lives in a hut in the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic and ends up setting fire to his bed."**

Everybody was glaring at Draco, and Draco was shruk in his seat, looking at his knees.

**"I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.**

**"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer.**

**"Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"**

"Sorry." Draco said again, in a very quiet voice.

**"They're dead," said Harry shortly. **

Hermione squeezed his hand.

**He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.**

**"Oh, sorry," said the other, not sounding sorry at all.**

Draco stood up, walked over to where teen Harry was sitting. "Po-Harry, I'm sorry. I've been a jerk to you, and Weas-Ron, and Hermione. I'm sorry." he said. "All of you, I'm sorry I've been such a prat." he said addressing the rest of the DA. He sat down, and avoided eye contact with anyone, until Hermione stood up, took Dracos hand, and lead him over to where her, Harry and Ron were sitting, and wished up a chair next to her. He sat down. "It's alright." she said. Harry and Ron nodded., though Rons seemed reluctant.

**"But they were our kind, weren't they?"**

**"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."**

**"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you?**

Draco sighed. "I'm sorry." he said again. "M-Draco, stop saying sorry, we know." Harry said.

**They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"**

**Before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.**

**"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.**

"Drawling boy. Thanks Harry." "No problem."

**"What's up?" said Hagrid.**

**"Nothing," Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote.**

**When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"**

James groaned.

**"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know - not knowin' about Quidditch!**

**"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's. "and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in -"**

**"Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were - he's grown up knowin yer name if his parents were wizardin' folk - you saw 'em in the Leaky Cauldron. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles - look at yer mum! Look at what she had fer a sister!"**

**"So what is Quidditch?"**

"Only the best sport in the world!"

**"It's our sport, wizard sport. It's like - like football in the Muggle world –**

"Football?" "It's like Quidditch, but it's on the ground, with one ball that you kick around."

**everyone follows Quidditch - played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls - sorta hard ter explain the rules."**

"No it's not!" all the Quidditch fans exclaimed. So, basically more than half the room.

**"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"**

**"School houses. There are four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but -"**

The Hufflepuffs huffed. _(A/N: That sounds so weird XD)_

**"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," said Harry gloomily.**

"No you'll be in Gryffindor!" "But if you were in Hufflepuff, it wouldn't matter." Ron, Hermione, and both sets of Marauders said together than looked at eachother.

**"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."**

**"Vol - sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"**

**"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.**

**They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these.**

**Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Counter-Curses (Bewitch your Friends and Befuddle your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and much, much more**

"I want that!" the twins, the teen Marauders, Harry, Ron, Draco, Jessica, and Aria cried.

**by Professor Vindictus Viridian.**

**"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."  
**

Everybody cheered.

**"I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."**

"Dang."

**Hagrid wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"),**

"That would be so cool though!"

**but they got a nice set of brass scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the apothecary's, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages.**

**Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor, jars of herbs, dried roots and bright powders lined the walls, bundles of feathers, strings of fangs and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery black beetle eyes (five knuts a scoop).**

**Outside the apothecary's, Hagrid checked Harry's list again. "Just yer wand left –oh yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."**

"Aww Hagrid!" Hermione and Ginny said.

**Harry felt himself go red. "You don't have to -"**

**"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer an animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at**

Neville looked down sadly.

**-an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer post an' everythin**

"Hagrid got you Hedwig?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded.

**Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage which held a beautiful snowy owl, **

Harry smiled.

**fast asleep with her head under her wing. He couldn't stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.**

His smile disappeared at being compared to him.

**"Don' mention it, said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand."**

**A magic wand... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.**

"Me too." a lot of people said.

**The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.**

**A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty for a single spindly chair which Hagrid sat on to wait.**

**Harry felt strangely as though he'd entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions which had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.**

**"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.**

Everybody laughed.

**An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.**

**"Hello," said Harry awkwardly.**

**"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question.**

**"You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand.**

Both Lilys in the room smiled.

**Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."**

**Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.**

"Yeah." a lot of people agreed.

**"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand.**

"THAT IS MAHOGANY!" Jessica, Aria, and Harry yelled. Everybody looked at them. "It's a Muggle book series we all love. The Hunger Games." Aria explained. "Yeah, it actually made Harry _read._" Jessica said. "Hey I read sometimes!" "Okay, what was the last book you read that wasn't the Hunger Games." "Mockingjay." "That isn't part of the Hunger Games series." "This one." Jessica and Aria sighed and rolled their eyes.

**Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration.**

**Well, I say your father favored it- it's really the wand that chooses the wizard , of course."My Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.**

They all shuddered.

**"And that's where..." Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger.**

"Okay, sure, just go poke his head. No problem with that." Dean Thomas said, rolling his eyes.

**"I'm sorry to say that I sold the wand that did it," he said softly.**

**"Thirteen and a half . Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... Well, if I'd known what that wand was going out in the world to do..."**

Nearly everyone shuddered again.

**He shook his head and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Hagrid.**

**"Rubeus, Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"**

**"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.**

**"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.**

**"Er - yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.**

**"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.**

**Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.**

**"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now - Mr. Potter. Let me see."**

**He pulled a long tape measure with silver marking out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"Er - well, I'm right-handed," said Harry.**

**"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns or dragons or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."**

**Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.**

**"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave."**

**Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander took it out of his hand almost at once.**

**"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven whippy. Try -"**

**Harry tried - but he had hardly raised it when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.**

**"No, no - here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."**

**Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.**

"He loves a hard costumer." Dumbledore said. _(A/N: I don't mean to be immature but- That sounds so wrong XD) _

**"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere - I wonder, now - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."**

**Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers.**

**He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on the walls.**

Everybody cheered.

**Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious..."**

"What's curious?" "If you would stop interupting and let Luna read Ronald, you would find out."

**He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious...""Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?"**

**Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand.**

"How?"

**It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother - why, its brother gave you that scar."**

Everybody went completly silent. "Y-your wand..." Ron stuttered. "Is Voldemort's" most of the room winced. "brother." Harry said. There was an awkward silence, which Luna broke by reading.

**Harry swallowed.**

**"Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. potter... After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."**

**Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.**

**The late-afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn't even notice how much people were gawping at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the sleeping snowy owl on Harry's lap.**

**Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder."Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.**

**He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them.**

**Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.**

**"You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.**

**Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of his life - and yet - he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the words.**

**"Everyone thinks I'm special,"**

"Because you are Harry." Ginny said, then blushed, as did Harry.

**he said at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander ... but I don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when Vol- sorry - I mean, the night my parents died."**

Teen Lily and James hugged each other.

**Hagrid leant across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.**

**"Don' you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts - I did - still do, 'smatter of fact."**

Everyone smiled.

**Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys,**

"Noooooooooooo!"

**then handed him an envelope.**

**"Yer ticket fer Hogwarts," he said. "First o' September - King's Cross - it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me... See yer soon, Harry."**

**The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.**

"He didn't tell you how to get on the Platform!" teen Remus said. "Oh don't worry, I got on fine." he said smiling at the Weasleys. "That year." Ron said in Harrys ear.

"Who wants to read next?" "I will." Dumbledore said.


End file.
